5. “Do you have a big one?” asked the man with leaking eyes

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The morning met me with kindness. I had sat up after pulling myself off and having a cold shower and meditated on the bed. Started to associate as a soul again. I had a meeting and my first lengthy conversation with a face for over a week. Trying to get my website sorted. We got it off the ground. This website you read this on. Afterwards I felt a nice sense of accomplishment. The world is mere but a mirror but the contrast of working through the currents of life rewarded you, especially when it was for you.

Got an Uber to Fort Kochi with my bag packed. Laptop, kindle, headphones. Wearing a shirt for the first time. Feeling good, feeling the part.

After feeling some despair the day or two before I had gotten to sit with it. Watch it. When the Wi-Fi is out. The group chats deserted. The world you know is asleep. No distraction but the sweat that drips from your forehead. There is nothing but that self, and you realise why you use everything else before you talk to him. He isn’t divine at all. He is actually quite crude. But like every troubled man, he just needs to be heard, to be nurtured. Then you realise he isn’t so bad after all, he is quite funny.

I sat at Bar 18, a bar that overlooks the busy intersection. In the area where you see a fair few white chicks, dressed like a prize. On their own journey, so special back home but another wandering body with the same flowing colourful pants as the next tourist. The same tattoos. The same hair. The same body shape. The same.

I sat there and the man asked if I wanted a beer,

“No thanks, just a water for now” I said as I looked at the food menu.

Yes, I was here looking for GOD, and I wasn’t going to find him at the bottom of a Kingfisher. I had a troublesome thought. This trip will change me, sure. But what if for the worse? What if I get home and the life I used to play in was now completely unbearable. Expensive and entitled people. Restaurants not having 11 people waiting for your eye contact. The day before I sat in a fancy place, which I’d been having the cunning knack of unfortunately always finding. For the first time I had been here I was bothered by flies. Two flies followed my restless stature. I sat there with a damp shirt from the sweat that covered my back on the walk. I couldn’t get comfortable. The place was somehow too cold. Too dark. I was drinking to avoid the negativity within. I laughed to myself and thought it would be funny if one of the many workers could come and sort these flies out. Then no longer than 5 minutes later a man was walking around with a zapper. Killing the flies. You see, what if I get home and I don’t have that privilege. Here I am rich, in money and sometimes spirit. At home I am broke, in money and sometimes spirit.

So I sit at bar 18 reading ask the dust – John Fante. I order a Kerala Curry. I am present. The food comes and it is once again delicious. A man sits on the table adjacent to me. He looked at me and in an accent I am not cultured enough to identify says,

“Good food?”

“Beautiful” I reply.

And here I was, conversing with an adult. That’s what travel is all about. Look at me go. I felt special so I ordered a beer to celebrate. I sat there and I finished that book. In awe of a mans ability to not waste a single sentence. Picturing it all in my mind as if I was there along side Artuno Bandini. I urge you, reader, to read that novel.

I felt I needed some exercise because my body dysmorphia hid in my bag and followed me here. I paid the bill, and walked on. Doing a loop of the block.

Men played cricket in the park. Kids played soccer. I ducked through the fence, took my headphones out and watched. Hoping they would ask me to play. They played on hard dirt. Wearing thongs and jeans. The ball they were using was a tennis ball of sorts but hard. It had bounce and plenty of journey if hit well – and plenty were.

For the first time since being in India (a week) I sore visible anger on a face. When a 9 year old boy was accused of handball. Within all the riff raff, all the chaos, that was the only negative emotion shown by anyone.

The cricketers weren’t great, but in their own way that made them possibly better than me. The way they hit the ball lacked technique and every time they smacked one it seemed like a fluke, but the rate they were smacking them proved it wasn’t. I was concerned yet excited that they would ask me to play. That I would stand at the crease with the big wooden bat. Forearms light from nerves and the kingfishers swirling in my stomach. I could have pushed myself into the field. Made my presence showing want. But I sat and watched.

A man with his eyes all over the shop spoke to me. An elderly man with a beard. I knew he was talking to me because there was no one else within 10 metres. Not because he was looking at me, it seemed he was looking at everything but me. The hawks in the sky and the ants on the dust.

“Where are you from?” he asked,

“Australia” I replied with a cadence implying enthusiasm,

“ahh Australia”

The man spoke with dried up residue in the crevice of his eyeball, cracked and yellow onto his cheekbone. He was friendly, the language barrier was there and only showed troubles when I realised he had asked a question. He was a Christian man, he came here every night to watch the sport. Home at 7:30 to pray. Two kids. A wife. Everything that pointed to a well rounded individual. Until he continued to speak.

“You married?”

“Nah, single”

“ah Batchelor life. I love Batchelor life”

I awkwardly laugh.

“Fuck fuck fuck” he said,

I hold myself with composure. Wanting to watch the boys play cricket. Now stuck in a conversation with this man.

“You fuck here?”

“Nah, not yet, only been here for four days”

“You get ahhhh call girls?”

“nah, free”

“Fresh? ha ha ha, you like to hear it pop?”

He had completely misheard me and thinks I’d raised the stakes on a conversation I was already working out a way to end.

“You like white girls?”

“I like them all” I lied,

“I have friend. He is English. Good friend of mine. He is coming over here soon. He has big one” he said, whilst putting his forearm up, “Thick one”,

“Ok”

“English have big one. Indian have small one. Why is this?”

“You will have to ask your God”

“You have big one?”

This cunt was really asking me about the size of my cock at the local park on a Tuesday!

“I dunno man”.

I looked at my watch, ah yes, that place I've got to get to. I picked up my backpack and said goodbye to the googly eyed cunt.

As I walked back to the epicentre of ongoings I felt dirty. Was everyone in this town fucking gay?

The irony of a church or a temple or a mosque being on every corner and its filled with gays. I got nothing against gays. They helped me feel the unease women feel with men. The conservative women of India, surrounded by poofters. As I walked I thought of everything I should have done. I thought about the times I would get frustrated with a past girlfriend for going into fright mode when a man approached them instead of fight mode. Like I would definitely do. Realising I just awkwardly laughed the old man away. I should have said

“Big what?”

Why are you hiding behind ambiguity man,

“Hey man! that’s none of your god dammed business!”

“Listen fella” I say as I grab him by the scruff, Cricketers looking on knowing the business cause they had all been approached before.

“Jesus wont forgive you for this buddy!”

But I didn’t do anything but walk off, getting over it pretty quickly. If only the women loved me as much as all these men seem too.

I sat back in Bar 18, going to have a few more drinks, a good meal and go home and dry hump the pillow watching Reddit porn. Ah I miss my western whores!

The place had a pulse. The warms lights and the humidity gave the sense it was the place to be. A man asked for my table and unknowingly being racist I asked for another beer, not realising he didn’t work here. A trio of Caribbean women sat a few tables over. As wide as they were tall. Long fingernails, long hair, big voluptuous asses. One waved at me with a twinkle of her fingers and eyes to match. I smiled and waved back. I didn’t want to sleep with her but as a writer it was my duty to pursue all experiences. I sat there picturing it. How id make it work. Big black lips around my Johnson.

“Yeah I do have a big one!” id shout.

Two fellas walked in and the place was full. I was on a table of four seats and they asked to sit with me. They did.

Jack and another name I cant remember because it was an Indian name and couldn’t tie it to any familiarity in my mind. They were very good fellas. From Mumbai down on holidays. Jack was short and his teeth were bucky and polite. The other man looked like Jorge Masvdal. His long hair tied tightly into a pony tail. They offered me a cigarette and I sat there drinking beers and smoking with them.

Jack spoke a lot and he spoke fast, their English was good but I could only catch a few words a sentence and then try and piece it together. Masvidal had organised a date with a British broad and after about 20 minutes he left. Jack and I sat there drinking storms and smoking. He was an interesting man and spoke well and polite. Occasionally giving me a high five and a fist bump. He sold diamonds. Had travelled the world for the last twenty years. Had an arranged marriage. Didn’t speak to his wife for the first five years. Had no interest. Was rooting everything he could on every continent. After five years he softened up and they did fall in love. He now has three kids and I asked if he loves her because of the mother she is and he said yes.

He told me he has a second wife. A lady he met in Nepal. Jack was a bit of a guru in his own way. He was devoted to the philosophy of Humanism. Something I guess I follow without having heard of the term. A joyous alternative to Religion based on reason and human nature. Jack was honest and could tell that lying wasn’t in his nature. This is something we spoke about and everything we did speak about I tended to agree with. Lying creates anxiety. Allowing yourself to lie allows yourself to do things you know you shouldn’t with no consequences. But there are consequences.

He had met his second wife whilst in Nepal. The lads smoke joints which is cool. She had sat down next to him and they spoke at length. After some time she had fallen in love. He had a bold understanding of the difference between physical attraction and the love of the soul. The love of the soul he promised to his first wife, his Muslim wife.

The lady he met in Nepal said she only wanted him. She has no problem with his wife or his kids. He told her that’s fine but I do. She was happy being a single rose in the garden of Jack.

He spoke to his wife. They spoke together. I think he spoke to his dad. Then they got married. The lot of them all get along. His kids go to Nepal and know his second wife. I don’t really know how it all works but he isn’t going to have kids with her. He financially supports her.

“When is number three?” I asked,

He showed me a photo of this ghastly looking German and told me the story of how he met her boyfriend in Nepal. Her boyfriend had mentioned his partner being suicidal and he spoke with her on the phone. Three hours on the phone. That afternoon she flew from Germany to see him. Jack now being in this obscure three way relationship. I had an inkling, and it may have no firm grounds and just the coyness of the devil that resides within me that Jack was supporting a few people financially. That his diamond sales had given him enough cash to splash to troubled souls that didn’t want to work. But also, the way he spoke and his set philosophy on life, he may also have their hearts.

Bar 18 closed and Jack paid the bill, which I tried to not allow. Maybe id be Jacks third wife. We went to dinner. First time id been in a restaurant on the street that wasn’t catered to posh stomachs. It was great and a great experience. Jack told me to come to his apartment tomorrow. I want to smoke a joint so I will. I went home and fell asleep, woke up with a message on WhatsApp.

“Good morning bro!”

“Morning mate!”

“How’s your night bro  what's your plan brother?”

“Night was great, you? I got a bit to do. Think ill head down later”

“Cool bro  I was having a great evening with you. Do you like this? You can check out of your hotel and come stay at my apartment where I rent so we can hang out and chill and smoke talk make next plan for India.?”

“its cool bro, I got this place till the 21^st and already have the next place booked. I like staying on my own anyway, that way I get some time to myself between meeting people. I will come to your apartment this arvo for a chat and smoke though!”

“cool no problem bro  come anytime  see you soon!”

And there we have it.

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